


Life As

by uumea



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Clueless Finn, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, I just want them to be happy, Jealousy, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, TLJ Spoilers, finnrose kinda, starts immediately after the ending of tlj
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-03 05:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13334046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uumea/pseuds/uumea
Summary: 'How had he not thought of that at all? He would've saved the fleet, sure, but Finn? He would've lost Finn.'Poe blames himself for the almost-destruction of the resistance and Finn doesn't understand feelings.Post-TLJ, therefore full of spoilers.





	1. Realisation

**Author's Note:**

> I've never attempted to write a multi-chapter fic, but I'll try my best to update regularly. I'm shooting for about 5 chapters, but we'll see what happens. Exciting stuff.

The resistance was as good as gone and it was all Poe's fault. Had he just believed in the Vice Admiral and trusted her judgement, Finn and Rose wouldn't have gone to Canto Bight and consequently would have never met the shady bastard who ratted them out to the First Order. The resistance would have been able to evacuate to Crait without being noticed and General Hugs would have had a fit. And now, there were no more than a dozen people left.

No one blamed him, of course. In fact, he was pretty sure that they all knew that he had only done what he thought best for their cause. Still, he felt the guilt. Oh, how he felt it. But now was not the time to wallow in self pity. Given the General's poor health, he had to be the new leader, whatever it was that was left to be led. 

He was sitting on a crate in the main holder of the falcon, watching the other's settling down after the close escape they had just had, some celebrating, some comforting each other, most trying to process their losses. They had lost so many. His eyes drifted over Rey and Leia, who were sitting together, talking, over a bird-like-thing on R2D2's head that seemed way more at home than any of the people around it, to eventually rest on Finn sitting beside Rose, who was lying unconscious on the relief pilot bunk. 

With a jolt, Poe realized that in the heat of the moment, he had risked their lives above all else. Even if they had succeeded their mission, how would they have made it back to the Resistance fleet? The moment Rose would've distressed their tracking signal, he would've made the jump to hyperspace and they would've been lost on the Supremacy, forever. How had he not thought of that at all? He would've saved the fleet, sure, but Finn? He would've lost Finn. 

With a sigh, he buried his face in his hands and closed his eyes, taking a couple of deep breaths to calm himself. No, he had to think rationally. It's no use dwelling on the would've and could've. Finn was there, alive and well. So was Rose, of course. She had saved Finn's life. Finn, who hadn't listened to Poe's order, who had turned off his communicator, who had almost died. Again. 

Poe knew that he couldn't be angry with Finn. After all, he was the master of ignoring orders and sacrificing lives. Just not his own. What a thoroughly good and brave man Finn was. He had been prepared to sacrifice himself for the resistance, he didn't care one bit about his own life. 

Poe looked back up towards Finn, who was gently cleaning the dirt off of Rose's face with a cloth, and felt a wave of fondness for his friend, his wonderful, selfless friend, who always cared about others first and never about himself. How he wished he could be like that. Kind and brave and noble. 

He stood up too quickly, the exhaustion of the day suddenly kicking in. Feeling very lightheaded and weak in the knees, he had to reach out to the nearest wall for stability. 

“Poe? Are you okay?” 

It was Finn who had come up behind him, a worried look on his face. Poe smiled at him reassuringly and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“Sure, buddy. I'm just real tired. Running from those douchebags really does drain your energy.” 

“You can say that again. I'm exhausted.” Finn sighed, followed by a huge yawn.

“How about we find some place to crash? There's gotta be quarters somewhere on this thing.” 

Finn gave a weak laugh. “Solo would've hated you calling his ship a 'thing'.” Poe lifted his hands apologetically and looked cautiously around himself, as if the ship were to suddenly open a hidden door and throw him out into hyperspace.

“I'm sorry, ship, you know that I'm the last person to discriminate such a historic piece of ju- … I mean such a wonderfully crafted piece of technology.” Finn grinned at his ridiculousness. “But coming back to my preposition, how about those beds?” 

“Sure, yeah, the quarters are somewhere down that corridor, I think.”

The two of them walked away from the remains of the resistance and tried a couple of doors before they finally found a small room with just three bunks and a tiny kitchen-like area.

“Well…” Poe started, stepping into the small room and almost filling it up all by himself. “That's not gonna fit all twelve of us.” 

“We'll just have to take turns until we find a new base.” Finn entered behind him and looked around, almost bumping his head on the way in. 

“...wow, this takes me back, the Stormtrooper quarters were about the same size,” he murmured, playing with some apparatus next to the tiny sink. “But we didn't have our own kitchen, we ate in a canteen, everyone had the same food, the same amount even...” He trailed off, his shoulders tensing. Poe watched him with sympathy and placed a soothing hand on Finn's back. 

“Hey, don't think about that. It's over, you're here now, with us.” 

Finn quickly shook his head as if to get rid of a fly and grinned at Poe. “You're right! I am here, with you.” 

Poe grinned back and patted Finn's shoulder again, in that same bro-like manner he had done before. Then he turned towards one of the beds and pointed to it invitingly.

“Right, then! Sleep, me thinks? Might as well take the bunks before anyone else claims them for themselves.” Finn hesitated a moment, then shook his head.

“I can't, I mean, I should really get back to Rose - - at least until she wakes up, she won't know where she is and I don't… I don't want her to...” he trailed off, looking slightly red in the face and turning sideways as if embarrassed. Something inside of Poe twisted uncomfortably, but he quickly dismissed it as a side effect of sleep deprivation.

“Oh, right, sure, go ahead. But don't force yourself to stay up for too long, okay? Sleep is important, we can't afford to lose people to exhaustion.” 

“Aye, Commander.” Finn grinned and saluted.

“… Captain.” Poe corrected and sighed dramatically, which made Finn laugh as he went to close the mechanical door behind him. With his hand hovering over the button, he stopped and turned his head around to look at Poe. His eyes softened and he smiled. Poe's heart missed a beat.

“I'm really glad we both made it. Sleep well.” And with that, he closed the door, leaving Poe feeling strangely giddy and content. Exhaustion really did weird things to you. He decided to take his own advice and let himself flop onto the nearest bed without even bothering to change out of his sweaty clothes. Sleep came almost instantly.


	2. Acceptance

Darkness. Metal. The whizzing of a small, lethal machine. The taste of blood. Pain. 

Then, the sound of a door opening; heavy steps. A strange, artificial voice. More pain – different pain. Inside, probing. Searching, finding. Screaming. More darkness. 

Suddenly, a change: he, now, is the voice. And in front of him on a metal chair, sunken in on himself, bleeding: Finn. His hand reaches out, wants to free, wants to soothe and calm, but the gesture makes Finn cry out in pain. 

Another change: he watches in horror as Finn races towards a blinding light; it will be his death, no question. He screams, but Finn doesn't hear him. The light turns brighter, hotter, and brighter still; Poe can't move.

Unexpectedly, a voice. “Poe?” Finn? “Poe! Wake up!” How was he…? He was right there, in the speeder, racing towards… 

Poe awoke with a start, his eyes flickering around the room wildly. They found Finn, who was squatting next to his bunk, looking anxious in the face of his friend's distress.

“Finn, you- You were, and then me, but then Ren – you are -” He was breathing heavily, caught up in the horrors of his dream. A gentle hand was placed on his arm.

“I'm here, everything is fine. You were dreaming. Pretty loudly, actually, you were screaming, um, screaming my name, so I came here.”

“Dreaming, of course. Now that you say it, of course it was a dream…” Poe closed his eyes again for a second and let out a shuddering sigh. Then he heaved himself into a sitting position. “How silly our brains are, making us think such horrible things...” 

“Well, what were you dreaming about?” Finn asked, sitting himself down on the bed, right next to Poe, eyeing him carefully.

“Hah...” Poe gave a hysteric, humourless laugh. “At first it was the usual deal, that greasy bastard torturing me, nothing too weird, I'm used to that. But suddenly it was you getting tortured and I was the one doing it… and it could have been you, on the Supremacy… with that monster... oh god...” 

The more he spoke, the harder it was to breathe. He was gripping the edge of his bunk hard, digging his fingers into the mattress to keep them from shaking: that just made his entire upper body shake from the strain he put on his muscles as well as the panic that came back with full force. His jaw clenched as he tried his best to resist the waves of panic, resist letting himself fall into an abyss of horror, when he felt pressure on his thighs.

He opened his eyes – when had he closed them? - and found Finn kneeling in front of him, his hands on Poe's thigh's in an obvious attempt to soothe him. 

“Poe, listen. It's all good, it was just a dream. Ren doesn't have you, and he doesn't have me. He's far away, and you're here, with me, on the falcon. Your friends are here, we're not gonna let anything happen to you.” 

Poe was still breathing hard, his voice a broken whisper. “But it could have happened, so easily! I risked your life without even thinking about it, I was completely swept up in the moment and you could have died.” 

Finn closed his eyes for a moment, then looked back up at Poe, gaze soft but full of purpose. 

“You don't think about yourself at all, do you? You had to suffer through torture; you made sure we could go through with our plan; you ordered us to stop the attack and it's completely my fault that I didn't listen.” He raised himself up to a squat and gripped Poe's face with both hands. His eyes were firmly locked onto Poe's as he continued to speak, enunciating every word very carefully. 

“You were trying to save the resistance. Your intentions were honorable. Please don't blame yourself. Everybody makes mistakes.” He searched Poe's face for signs of further panic, but his words had visibly calmed the other. The grip of his hands on the mattress had loosened and his breathing had become almost normal again. He was almost calm. Finn spoke again.

“Please believe me when I say this. You are so incredibly loyal to our cause, you have so much spirit to fight for what you believe in. I wish I was like you.”

Finn wanted to be like him. Poe almost laughed at that. They were both fools. Neither of them saw the strengths in themselves, always yearning for what others had. 

He felt completely calm again. Suddenly, a revelation: maybe he didn't want what Finn had. Maybe he just wanted Finn. 

But Finn liked Rose. Or maybe Rey. One of the two. Females, for sure. It was no use dwelling on romantic nonsense anyway, they were still in the middle of a very dire situation. And there he was, panicking for no good reason, wasting time. 

Leader. He was supposed to be a leader. 

With a confident smile, Poe gently removed Finn's hands from his face but continued to hold them in his lap.

“Thanks, buddy. You really helped. I'm good now. We should get to work.” With a gentle squeeze he let go of Finn's hands and stood up, walking towards the sink in the corner to quickly splash his face. Finn looked confused as to the sudden change in Poe's demeanor, but seemingly decided to just accept it without further question. He too got up and went to open the door.

“We've landed, by the way. Some other abandoned rebel base that the General remembered.” 

Poe dried his face with a cloth and frowned at Finn. “And no one thought to wake me up?” 

“No one had the heart to wake you, you were asleep for over 13 hours, it seems like you really needed it.” 

“That long? What about the others, didn't they want to sleep?” 

“Oh, they did. We all did. I slept just over there,” Finn pointed to the bunk on the opposite side of the tiny room. “The others managed somehow. No one complained, don't worry.”

“Well, if you say so.” Poe said and went through the open door towards the main holder. There was Rey, working on a panel which seemed to have a lot more wires sticking out of it than there should be. 

“Sleeping Beauty has arisen.” she commented upon seeing Poe, and put down her wrench to face Poe and Finn, smiling softly. Finn giggled.

“Excuse me?” Poe asked with a frown, looking back at Finn.

“I guess the main reason no one wanted to wake you is that you were sleeping so prettily.” Finn said, grinning. Rey nodded solemnly.

Poe flushed slightly. “We are in a crisis and that's what's on your minds? Shame!” he cried dramatically, which earned another giggle from Finn. But Poe had meant it, he was in full leader-mode now.

“Someone update me on the situation, please. What's the state of our resources, do we have enough supplies to survive, are our people doing okay? No one followed us?” 

“You should go talk to the General, she has been overseeing things while you were sleeping.” Rey said, turning back to her work. 

“Right. And you're doing what?” Poe asked, stepping closer. 

“Keeping busy.” Rey murmured, connecting cables and tightening screws. “Leia wants me to sleep, but I can't. She won't let me help out there, so I'm in here.” 

“You do need to sleep, Rey.” Finn piped up. “You're the only one who hasn't gotten at least an hour of rest.” 

“No.” she said insistently, keeping her eyes fixed on her busy hands. 

“You can't force her, Finn.” Poe said, distracted, his mind already outside with the others. “Women are stubborn.” 

Rey huffed but didn't say anything. It was clear that Finn wasn't satisfied, but a pointed look from Poe made him sigh in defeat. He turned away from the working girl and put one hand on Poe's shoulder.

“Alright. Let's get to work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know nothing of mechanics. Wires and screws will have to do. Sorry.


End file.
